


415. small town ghosts

by piggy09



Series: The Sestre Daily Drabble Project [65]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Gen, Small Towns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2016-09-03
Packaged: 2018-08-12 17:55:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7943842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piggy09/pseuds/piggy09
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helena knows better – nobody leaves this town, not ever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	415. small town ghosts

Every day the same routine: Sarah walks into Helena’s diner, sits down, and orders a cup of tea. When Helena brings her the cup of tea, Sarah gives her exactly eighty-five cents in change, looks at Helena, and says: “I’m leaving soon.”

Every day Helena says “Okay, Sarah,” and leaves until Sarah drinks all the tea.

Helena knows better – nobody leaves this town, not ever. Helena moved here a long long time ago, when she was small, and the diner was still Maggie’s Diner instead of Maggie’s-Diner-that-is-Helena’s-diner. But now it is that, and Maggie is gone the only way anyone ever _ever_ leaves this town.

(“Look,” Maggie said, while showing Helena how to flip a burger – _no, you can eat it_ after _we’ve cooked it_ – “everyone ends up here and thinks that they’re gonna leave, kiddo. Everyone thinks they’re gonna make it out.”

“I don’t,” said Helena with perfect assurance. This town had food, which was more than she could say for any other place she’d lived.

“You will, someday,” Maggie said. “You’ll meet someone, or you’ll see something, or you’ll just feel it: that you have to go. But you won’t. You’re gonna grow old here, kiddo, and you’re gonna die here. That’s just the way it is.”)

Sarah has come in every day for the last two years. She orders her tea. She pays with exact change. She says she’s leaving soon, with stubborn faith. Sometimes the routine changes. Sometimes Sarah says: _I hate this piece of shit town_. Sometimes Sarah says: _buddy of mine says he can take me on his truck, and_ — Sometimes Sarah says: _the hell is wrong with you, how are you happy like this_.

“I don’t know,” Helena says, shrugging slightly. “I like it.” It’s not that she does, really, but it’s what she knows. And that’s close enough.

The old advertisements on the wall used to have colors, but they’re faded now. The booths are starting to fall apart. Helena has been flipping the same burgers for fifteen years. It’s fine. She isn’t happy, but her belly is full and she keeps other people’s bellies full and really that is more than enough to ask for.

“Have you ever seen the ocean,” Sarah asks her one day. The cup of tea is half-gone. Nobody else is in the diner at this time of day – Mark will come by in an hour and order eggs, scrambled, with cheese. Alison orders salad but wants pie and so Helena will give her pie. Art takes his coffee black, and wants it fast. Every single day.

Except: “No,” Helena says.

“Don’t you ever _want_ to?”

“I don’t know,” Helena says. She really doesn’t. Her brain is used to its small circles, tea-eggs-pie-coffee. It can’t hold the sea; it’s too big. She lets it go. She isn’t happy, but—

“That’s where I’m going,” Sarah says, eyes wide and full of something too sharp to be hope. “That’s my first stop. The beach. Then – who knows. Cities. Mountains. Something besides _this_ , Helena, don’t you ever think about that?”

“Do you want more tea?” Helena says – which is mean, because she knows Sarah doesn’t. She knows. Sarah has never had another cup of tea, ever, in two years.

“I’m leaving soon,” Sarah says again. “And you’re the only person in this whole bloody town who seems like they might come with me.”

“If I go,” Helena says, words a surprise in her mouth, “who will keep people fed? Who will know what they want, and what they need? Who will take care of them?”

“What about _you_ ,” Sarah says.

Helena shrugs. “I’m okay,” she says quietly. She gets up. She takes Sarah’s empty teacup with her.

* * *

Sarah leaves the next day. She doesn’t come back.

* * *

Nobody knows that Sarah is gone – or at least nobody in Helena’s small little world knows, Mark and Alison and Art and Virginia and Angie and Beth and, and, and. None of them really look at her, so it’s not like they’re going to ask her if there’s anything missing, if she looks sad, if she’s okay. Helena is just as faded as the walls. Maggie’s Diner is getting old. Helena is too.

She buys a painting of the ocean, for the wall. But she decides not to put it up.

* * *

The bell on the door rings at two in the afternoon – dead time, time when only people from out-of-town come in. (Which is to say: time when nobody ever comes in.) It’s Sarah. There’s a sunburn peeling on her nose, and she looks so alive – the most alive Helena has ever seen anyone look.

She sits down, and orders a cup of tea. Helena brings her the cup of tea, and Sarah gives her exactly eighty-five cents in change, looks at Helena, and says: “I’m leaving soon.”

Helena says: “Take me with you.”

Sarah says: “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Please kudos + comment if you enjoyed!


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